


There He Was

by littlefallenseraph



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Destiny 2, F/M, Pre-Destiny 2: Forsaken DLC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 13:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17767850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlefallenseraph/pseuds/littlefallenseraph
Summary: Zepharia (F!Guardian) falls in love with Uldren Sov only to have her heart crushed when he is "killed" during the battle with Oryx.





	1. Chapter 1

He wasn’t perfect. Zepharia knew. She saw the glint of mischief in his eyes when he toyed with people. She stood back as he debated the purity of The Light with his crows. She saw The Darkness licking the edges of his personality like flames to kindling but in the end: what did it really matter? She loved his darkness—his danger. Something about him was just too magnetic to resist.   
  
Against his sister’s wishes—and her better judgement—she found herself spending more and more time with him. Not only that but she found herself spending more and more time with The Reef. Getting to know the ins and outs of the forgotten lands where Fallen roamed and law was little more than an ignorant suggestion. She was surprised by how she grew to adore the tethered stones and the derelict ships. But what she found most surprising is how she grew to adore him.  
  
He was rather—shall we say—prickly, after her success in The Black Garden. Nevertheless, whenever she was recklessly throwing herself into the adventures The Reef has to offer, he was right there with her. Maybe at first, in part, because of curiosity. But slowly he dropped the walls he’d built up around himself—all professionalism and nobility—and showed her what a truly good person he was. For all his danger and darkness, he really did care about his people, about his sister, about outcasts in general. He saw them as kindred spirits and sought to make them feel welcome somewhere, anywhere, even if it was with the rest of the outcasts.   
  
It took her months before she finally told him how she felt. She’d almost expected him to laugh but all he did was smile, cup her cheek in his palm, and kiss her on the forehead. She didn’t know what to make of it until she passed through a darkened corridor of the palace and the Queen emerged.   
  
“Take care of my brother,” she said. “He’s the only person I care about and up until now I’ve been the same for him.” She turned to walk away and then muttered in her soft yet threatening voice, “don’t make me regret allowing that to change.” 

* * *

  
The next day Zepha woke in a mixture of excitement and terror. Excitement because it appeared he felt the same way about her as she did him. Terrified because she was fairly certain that even if that was true, the Queen was definitely going to feed her to one of her more monstrous pets.   
  
But more than that she woke…surprised. At first, she thought her apartment might be on fire. Beacon materialized in front of her and immediately buzzed off to investigate the source of the smoke. “Zeph come out here!” He yelled before popping back in through her bedroom door and whispering, “You’re gonna want to see this for yourself.”   
  
She walked out to the kitchen and found a perplexed man trying his best to cook eggs…and failing. She couldn’t contain a giggle—which blew her cover—and he whipped his head around, quickly painting on a cool grin that was only somewhat clouded by the egg particles on his face.  
  
“What exactly are you doing to my kitchen?” She put her hands on her hips and raised an amused brow as she surveyed the disaster.  
  
His face fell only slightly as he pouted, “I’m making you breakfast, isn’t that obvious? I thought it would be…” she slid underneath his arms, putting herself between him and the counter, “nice.”  
  
She chuckled, gesturing down to his clothes, “you could have fooled me.” Her hands brushed over his chest, clearing the bits of scrambled egg that clung to his sweater. She pulled an apron off the hook and hung it around his neck, then wrapped her arms around him to tie it and trailed shy kisses down his jaw and neck.  
  
“Always looking out for me,” he mused.  
  
“That’s what Guardians _do_ , silly” she whispered, eyes closed, into his collar bone.   
  
He wrapped his arms around her and rested his head on her hair. “Guardian,” he chuckled, “that word used to bring me such disdain but now—“ he inhaled deeply.   
  
“And now?” She urged, wanting to hear his words more than anything. Her arms wound tighter around his waist.  
  
“Now I feel,” he said, pulling back and holding her face in his hands. He leaned in slowly but didn’t waiver. He whispered into her lips, “safe,” before finally allowing them to touch. 

* * *

  
_“Zeph I…crssshhhhhhh…so much. I don’t know…crssshhhhh…this but if I don’t make it please…crssshhhhh…okay…crssshhh…I love you…crssshhhhh…I…_ crssshhhhh _…”_  
  
That’s where the recording cut off. At first, it was saved in Beacon’s memory but eventually, she transferred it to a separate data core. She hated disturbing him over and over asking him to play if back to her. He was in pain too. Her little light had grown, if grudgingly, fond of him as well and losing him so abruptly was hard on them both.  
  
She scoured the solar system for any sign that Uldren had survived. Planet by planet, moon by moon, cave by cave she searched tirelessly. Her search took her to Mars—to Hellas Basin. She had to fight through a squadron of Cabal to get to it but when she finally saw it her heart dropped into her stomach.  
  
His ship: mangled, but it was there.  
  
She searched the wreckage frantically looking for any sign that he had survived the crash. She didn’t find his body, only a bit of cloth from his uniform, which was good news she thought. Beacon scanned the ship’s sand-logged computer.   
“Zeph I found something…” but when she looked hopefully up at him he seemed heartbroken.   
  
He queued an audio file and it played back—ship warnings beeping and whirring in the background.   
  
_“Zeph I love you so much. I don’t know if I’ll get out of this but if I don’t make it please be okay. I love you. I love you…”_  
  
The rage that exploded out of her was almost unlike anything Beacon had ever seen. Bolts of Arc Light zagged out of her body as she slammed her fists down on the floor of the cave and into the wall behind her. She fell to the ground, letting the last bit of her surge die as she wept. Then, after what felt like hours, she stood up, sniffed, and walked over to the marooned vessel.   
  
She scooped up the cloth and removed her mark, replacing it with the tattered remnants of Uldren’s cloak.   
  
She looked at Beacon and said, “Let’s go find him.” 


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zepharia continues her search for Uldren and has a fight with Cayde.

Determination fueled Zepharia’s very existence. Every waking thought was consumed with finding him and what would happen to him if she didn’t. Uldren was strong but she didn’t know how badly he was injured; judging by the condition of his ship and the inhabitants of that cave she didn’t have much hope. This didn’t stop her, however, from jumping world-to-world, ruin to ruin, to find him.   
  
Reports on the Tower had less and less to do with the Awoken’s recovery from Oryx’s attack and more to do with Fallen activity and then transitioned to recent Cabal movements following the Red War. When she was lightless, all she could think about was where he could be and if maybe, just maybe, he was safer with Cabal attention turned on the Tower. Days stretched into weeks into months and still, she couldn’t find him. Even places she thought he would never go lay dormant.   
  
Defeated, she slumped against the wreckage of an old car. She’d gotten little sleep and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She heard a transmat next to her but couldn’t bring herself to look up and see who it was.   
  
“Ya know…” a synthetic voice rang out, “I hate getting all mushy like this but…” he came closer and sat down, putting his arm around her. “He wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up like this.”   
  
In a moment of vulnerability, she allowed herself to rest her head on Cayde’s shoulder. Her eyes closed and she surrendered herself to the fact that she would likely never see the man she loved again. “Why wasn’t I there? Why didn’t I die with him?” Small, quiet sobs escaped her lips.   
  
The arm around her squeezed a little, holding her close and providing a little comfort and security in what was otherwise a terrifying moment. “C’mon kid, let’s get you back to the Tower.”

* * *

  
  
A few more months passed and Zepharia still monitored radio chatter and had an active feed on interesting discoveries, but she was slowly getting back to her life. Her heart still ached for Uldren—she missed him—but she knew he wanted her to move on. After all, that was his last wish for her.   
  
“Did you hear?” Gidean, her hunter partner, gossiped as Zeph’s team flew into the EDZ for a routine patrol. “Devrim was telling me that the Fallen have all united under a common banner, can you believe that?!” She didn’t give either of her teammates time to respond. “He said he thinks it’s because they’re spreading themselves too thin as separate Kells, so this one Baron brought them all together! They call him the Kell of Kings or something like that. Aurora, have you heard anything from Failsafe?”  
  
Aurora-2, their warlock partner, was staring at the screen of her datapad. Her eyes were flickering back and forth and it was clear that she hadn’t heard a word of the previous conversation. Feeling the gazes of her friends she looked up, “Hmm? What was your question?”  
  
Zeph snickered, “What do you know about the Kell of Kings?”   
  
“Hmm…I think I actually heard something about this.” She glanced back down at her datapad and sifted through some files before handing it to Zeph. “It’s a log from about a month ago. Cayde went on a recon mission with Petra and some of the remaining Crows to investigate the Kell but I guess someone had gotten there before them and taken him out a long time ago.” She gestures to a small picture included in the report of a dead Eliksni, apparently murdered on his throne, Ether decay obscuring his features. “There was also mention of the Crows recovering some Awoken prisoners as well, but it doesn’t go into much detail.”   
  
Zeph froze, nearly letting the datapad slip from her hands.”Awoken? D-did it say who they were?”  
  
Recognizing the train of thought, Aurora pulled the datapad away and took Zeph’s hands. “Zeph. I’m sure if any of the prisoners were someone as important as the Awoken prince, we would have known about it. Plus, it was Cayde. Don’t you think he would have told you?” Seeing that her words brought no comfort, she added, “Why don’t you ask Cayde about it? I’m sure he’d be happy to share the details with you.”   
  
This thought made Zeph feel a little better. As soon as they had landed, Zeph radioed Cayde. He answered almost immediately. “Zepharia! I was just about to call you, I have a mission I need you on.” Gidean raised her eyebrows and Aurora nodded encouragingly.   
  
“Cayde, I actually called you because I have a question.”  
  
“Oh great! How about I come to pick you up and we talk about it on the way there.”  
  
His voice betrayed a sense of urgency. Zeph nodded, “Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

  
As soon as Cayde was close enough, Zepharia flashed a quick thumbs up and a smile to her team and transmatted onto the bridge of Cayde’s ship. “So what’s the mission?” she asked, strapping herself into the rarely used copilot seat.   
  
“Petra is having a little trouble over at the old P.O.E,” he said.   
  
Zeph couldn’t remember the last time she’d even been to the Prison of Elders.”What’s going on?”  
  
“That’s the thing, she can’t figure it out. As far as she can tell there are some systems going haywire and it’s let a bunch of the inmates out. And now they’re all on a rampage killing each other. We’ve gotta go in there, restore the systems, and corral or kill the escapees.”  
  
She nodded in acknowledgment, “Well there’s been enough going wrong with the Awoken, figures that something like this would be next.” She bit her lip, waiting to see if he was finished.   
  
He, of course, realized something was on her mind. He threw her a lifeline, “Okay so what’s your question?”   
  
She looked down at her lap and fiddled with the fraying hem of Uldren’s cloak. “Cayde, about a month ago you went on a recon mission with Petra, you remember?”  
  
“Of course! We found that nasty rotting fallen bastard in there. Yuck,” he said, shivering. “What about it?”  
  
“You also found some…Awoken prisoners in there. Were any of them…” she trailed off, knowing he knew exactly what he was talking about.  
  
“Ah…hey…Zeph—” he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “—about that—”  
  
Zeph interrupted, “I know you would have told me if you had found anything out I just needed to know myself so if you didn’t find anything that’s okay.”  
  
He laughed, a nervous laugh. “Well, ya see. I was gonna talk to you about that.”  
  
Her heart skipped a beat and then promptly fell into her stomach. “Talk to me about what?”  
  
“The thing is, we didn’t find him there.” He stopped only briefly to glance up at her before continuing. “But we did find him.”   
  
She was very careful to control her expression. She wanted Cayde to finish but it didn’t sound like good news and she didn’t want him to think she couldn’t handle it. Even still, a small gasp escaped her lips.   
  
“Zeph he—he wasn’t himself. He was ranting and raving about hearing his sister’s voice and her telling him he had to free her or something crazy like that.” Cayde stared into her eyes. “He wasn’t your Uldren anymore he…he wasn’t Uldren anymore.”  
  
She took a deep breath, and a moment to process what he had just told her before screaming, “What in the Traveler’s Light do you mean you found him?! How could you not have told me?!”  
  
“Zeph, listen, he wasn’t—”  
  
“I don’t give a shit, Cayde! How could you have kept this from me? You just let me go on looking and hoping and you didn’t think you should maybe tell me that he—that he—” she stopped. In her heart, she knew that her friend was only doing what he thought was best. Still, she couldn’t forgive him just yet. “Where is he.” She said, more of a statement than a question. “Did you kill him?”  
  
“Of course not! We just put him somewhere he couldn’t hurt himself or anyone else.”  
  
“And where was that?” She kept her question short.   
  
He sighed, gripping his control console tightly as he responded, “The Prison of Elders.”  
  
To his surprise, and hers, she calmly said, “So you locked up a man who was clearly sick in a prison full of dangerous criminals. Why, exactly did you do that?”   
  
He considered his next few words carefully. “Petra thought it was for the best.”  
  
She nodded.   
  
The rest of the trip passed in silence.   
  
  
  
  
  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone! This isn't the last bit--I plan on writing through d2 so...more later!


End file.
